Coronary artery diseaseCardiac Arrest in Patients Who Smoke Crack Cocaine
Section snippets
Methods and Results
We searched the medical record database of San Francisco General Hospital from 1994 to 2006 to identify all patients who were resuscitated after sudden cardiac death (cardiac arrest) who had used cocaine within 24 hours before the cardiac arrest. Patients with electrocardiographic evidence of ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction were excluded. We selected the first available patients with cardiac arrest and no cocaine use as a control group. Because of the large difference in age between
Discussion
In this study, we found that cocaine users resuscitated from sudden cardiac death were much younger than nonusers with cardiac arrest and less likely to have a history of coronary disease, heart failure, or atrial fibrillation. More than half the cocaine users survived with complete neurologic recovery. Conversely, survival with neurologic recovery was very uncommon in control patients resuscitated after cardiac arrest, even in an age-matched control group. We speculate that cocaine users have
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Dr. Hsue is a recipient of a Clinical Scientist Development Award from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, New York, New York.